14 S.C. schools make Forbes’ ‘Best Colleges’ list

Fourteen colleges and universities in South Carolina made this year’s list of America’s Best Colleges compiled by Forbes magazine and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

The list appears in the current issue of Forbes magazine on newsstands now.

Wofford College topped the list of S.C. schools, coming in at No. 71 out of 600 schools. Coastal Carolina University finished out the complete list, ranked at No. 600. For the complete list, click here.

According to Forbes, the CCAP ranked 600 undergraduate institutions based on the quality of the education they provide, the experience of the students and how much they achieve.

They based 25% of the rankings on 4 million student evaluations of courses and instructors, as recorded on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com. Another 25% was based on post-graduate success, equally determined by enrollment-adjusted entries in Who’s Who in America, and by a new metric, the average salaries of graduates reported by Payscale.com. An additional 20% was based on the estimated average student debt after four years. One-sixth of the rankings are based on four-year college graduation rates–half of that is the actual graduation rate, the other half the gap between the average rate and a predicted rate based on characteristics of the school. The last component is based on the number of students or faculty, adjusted for enrollment, who have won nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships or Nobel Prizes.

For the complete methodology, click here.

South Carolina schools that made the list of ‘Best Colleges’

Rank, Name, Cost*, Freshman Class Size
71 Wofford College 40,835 415
147 Converse College 35,600 161
154 North Greenville University 24,500 516
170 Furman University 47,040 761
227 Presbyterian College 39,296 324
233 Claflin University 24,831 465
245 Erskine College 35,426 163
268 The Citadel 20,897 607
279 Bob Jones University 21,843 962
347 College of Charleston 21,293 1,956
428 Clemson University 22,115 2,923
431 University of South Carolina, Columbia 21,027 3,859
470 South Carolina State University 19,450 966
600 Coastal Carolina University 21,008 1,655

Top 10 overall ‘Best Colleges’

Rank, Name, State, Cost*, Freshman Class Size
1 United States Military Academy NY 0 1,263
2 Princeton University NJ 49,830 1,243
3 California Institute of Technology CA 48,990 236
4 Williams College MA 49,530 540
5 Harvard University MA 50,250 1,666
6 Wellesley College MA 50,026 596
7 United States Air Force Academy CO 0 1,286
8 Amherst College MA 50,230 439
9 Yale University CT 51,400 1,318
10 Stanford University CA 51,760 1,703

*Cost includes tuition, room and board, books, fees and other expenses.
Source: Forbes.com